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Ao chan

Parakeet found at Yokota Air Base in Tokyo reunites with elderly Japanese owner

by: Leon Cook | .

Stars and Stripes | .

published: October 02, 2017

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — A blue and white parakeet found near Stars and Stripes’ office in western Tokyo has been reunited with its Japanese owner in neighboring Kanagawa Prefecture.

The mysterious avian visitor, found Sept. 14 in the newspaper’s Yokota parking lot, fluttered into the hearts of Stripes employees who launched a social media search for its caretaker.

Nine Yokota residents who saw a Facebook post about the bird offered to adopt it; however, it didn’t take long to track down where it really belonged. Within hours, Kumi Sato saw a photograph of her mother’s missing parakeet on Twitter, and got in touch.

It turned out that the bird — named Ao-chan — had absconded through an open doorway at its home in Sagamihara City on Aug. 5. It survived a nearly 15-mile gauntlet of cat-filled neighborhoods, territorial crows and military aircraft propellers.

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